


A New Life

by Anonymouscosmos



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Eventual Smut, F/M, Five Stages of Grief, Grief, Healing, Mild Smut, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:34:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25679692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymouscosmos/pseuds/Anonymouscosmos
Summary: Marigold awakens to a world ravaged by bombs. Struggling to adapt to this new world, she works her way through her grief and finds hope, healing, and solace in the kindness of Paladin Danse.
Relationships: Paladin Danse/Female Sole Survivor
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	1. Loss

**Author's Note:**

> Paladin Danse is one of the most under-written characters I've ever seen. It's so unfair. At this point I have romanced him in-game about four times. Where the game fails me, my imagination goes into overdrive.
> 
> The main thought that runs through my head every time I play through Fallout 4 again is how casual it makes the situation feel. You come out of the vault and start popping the characters of the commonwealth without even blinking. I wanted to touch on what a normal person would actually be feeling and thinking, being thrown from suburbia into the nightmare that is Fallout 4. Grief, loss, and trauma affect us all - even those with military background.
> 
> I would also like to add, I very rarely write anything smutty, but I decided some eventual soft smut near the end wasn't so bad. It felt important for their story. 
> 
> Without further ado, here is my obsessively picked-over and revised fic.
> 
> P.S. I know Danse's vanilla eyes are brown. MY Danse's eyes are modded to a lovely green ;)
> 
> Thanks for reading.

**Loss**

All Marigold could see at first was a blur. She awoke in the dark, shaking violently from the cold and shock of being awoken. A spot of light in front of her, blurred and glowing. She wondered sluggishly if she had died. Where was she? What was this? She blinked rapidly. Her arms were leaden, her body uncooperative. She was so cold. She lifted tremulous hands and rubbed at her eyes, willing them to work. At last things began to come into focus. The spot of light was a window, frosted over. She looked down at herself. She was in a jumpsuit. A jumpsuit? What was this? Where -- and then she remembered. The panic, the despair, families running towards the vault with prized possessions falling from their arms. The mushroom cloud in the distance as they descended. The blast of air rushing towards them as the hatch closed overhead. 

Nate. Her husband. Where was he? Where was Shaun? They were here, too, she remembered. She rubbed at the frosted glass. Why was it frosted? Did she hear voices?

Across from her pod, she saw people. Vault-Tec suits. White coats. And someone else... Someone dressed like some kind of... mercenary? Soldier? What was going on? "This is the one," one of the techs said, gesturing towards the pod with Nate and Shaun. Her ears were ringing, or, humming. She wasn't sure. Her body did not feel like her own in that moment. She shouldn't be awake, this didn't feel right. 

She watched the door to the pod containing her family open. One of the techs reached for Shaun. Nate, no doubt as groggy as she was, pulled Shaun away. "No! I'm not letting you take Shaun!" she heard him yell. There was a brief scuffle.

And then a sound that tore through her soul. A gunshot. Though muffled by her ringing ears and the pod surrounding her, Marigold would know that sound anywhere. She had served as a marine for the better part of a decade before finally letting Nate talk her into settling down. 

Another sound, and she realized it was her own hoarse scream. Her body came alive, adrenaline flooding her veins, and she pounded on the glass. The man who was different looking than the rest stepped close to her pod, peered in at her through the glass. "At least we have a spare," he said. He had a wicked scar on the left side of his face, running over his eye and down his cheek. She swore she would never forget his face.

Fresh, cold air and nitrogen compounds flooded back into her pod. As she lost consciousness, Marigold swore she would find the man with the scar.

  
  
  


When Marigold awoke again, it was to a blaring alarm declaring system failure. Coughing wracked her body as her newly thawed lungs drew breath. She pounded on the door again, weakly, but this time it opened for her. Whatever critical failure was going on, it had released the door at last. She stumbled out into the room of pods, willing her legs to do as she demanded. She leaned against Nate's pod, shaking, and breathed in for five seconds and out for five seconds until she could steady herself. Slowly, she calmed herself, and took in her surroundings. There was a release button to the right. She was unable to see through the frosted glass properly.

Marigold pressed the button, trepidation and dread caught in her throat. The door opened, and she stifled an anguished moan. Nate was slumped to the side. He was frozen, and the spray of his blood had turned to ice where it landed. A hole in his forehead, frozen in time - only a trickle had run down his face before being immortalized in frost.. Her shaking hands caressed his face as tears ran down her own. "No," she choked out. "No. Oh, honey, baby, no. Oh no. No." She leaned against him, felt the chill of him through her jumpsuit. Her hands were shaking - from cryo sickness or grief or both, she could not say. The realization that he was gone sucked all the air from her lungs and the blood from her heart. 

He had been her everything. She had loved him since they were just kids, without realizing it. As they got older and that whisper in her heart became a roar, he had heard it too. He had waited for her patiently during each tour she served; waited for her and loved her and held her at the end of each one as if not a moment had passed since last they had kissed. She had always felt that her heart only beat because he sustained it. And now he was gone, and the traitorous thing still beat; each thrum of life in her veins a betrayal.

After what seemed an eternity, Marigold reached up and wiped the tears from her face. Her hands were steady again, despite the cold still clinging to her. Standing upright, she reached out and gently worked the wedding band from Nate’s finger. "I will find whoever did this, and put things right," she whispered to him. She slid the band onto her thumb - the only finger it would fit. 

Before leaving the room, she checked all the other pods. Everyone was dead. The system had failed long ago, from what she could surmise. Friends, neighbors... Many people she had known only in the polite nod sort of way. She and Nate had not lived in Sanctuary Hills long. Marigold had been massively pregnant when the last box was unpacked. Nate had decided moving to the suburbs would be just the thing they needed for their new family, and after living on military bases for their entire marriage, Marigold was inclined to agree. At least in their new home the laminate floors were something other than pebbled gray.

  
  


She wandered the halls, then, wondering if she was alone in this cavernous place. Everything in the vault was covered in a film of dust. Bones of staff long-dead lay about where they had fallen, never to be disturbed. It was clear that nobody had ever been woken up to live in this vault. They had all been frozen and left to die, while god knows what had been happening above ground. She found a stun baton and clutched it in her right hand, unsure of what to expect.

Ahead, she could hear movement. Her heart leaped. Another person, after all? As she turned the corner she realized it was not human noises. Massive bugs - bigger than any she had ever seen - moved about, and upon seeing her, zeroed in and attacked. Despite their size, they were not particularly formidable, and Marigold dispatched them easily. Panting from the exertion put on stiff muscles, she knelt to inspect one of the giant bugs. Cockroaches? Gigantic... cockroaches. Revulsion rippled through her. What world had she emerged into? Bugs the size of small dogs? And how did they get in? Or were they already in here?

She moved on, clutching the baton even tighter. Eventually, she entered a room with a massive desk. The Overseer's desk. The terminal had power, and she browsed the communications on file. Various statuses on occupants, but then the file on security instructions. As she read, rage bloomed in her chest.

**_Vault 111 is designed to test the long-term effects of suspended animation on unaware, human subjects. Security staff are responsible for maintaining installation integrity and monitoring science staff activity._ **

**_Under no circumstances are staff allowed to deviate from assigned duties. Insubordination or interference with vault operations are capital offenses. Security staff are authorized to use lethal force._ **

They had thought they were going into safety from the blast... but instead they had been unwitting experiments. Nate was dead and Shaun stolen, for what? An experiment? An entire life snuffed out, no more significant to Vault Tec than a lab rat.

She continued reading. It looked as though there had been a mutiny, but not a successful one. The staff had all turned on each other in violence. She wondered who died quickly and who died the slower death of starvation. A mirthless smile quirked the corners of her mouth. Good. None of those bastards deserved anything short of a miserable death.

On the desk was a 10mm handgun. Relieved, she dropped her baton and picked up the gun, pulling back the slide and checking to see if a round was chambered. Finally, something she understood. Muscles softened by an easy life still held the memory of other days and responded to the familiar weight. Her unease abated some, knowing she had least had one thing under control. She threw a few things - what she could scrounge - a handful of Stimpacks, ammunition for the handgun, the stun baton just in case - into a leather satchel and slung it across her body. She was as ready as she was going to be. 

In the vault door room, she had to clear a few more of the giant bugs out - a considerably easier task, with the 10mm. As adrenaline warmed her veins, the targets between the glow sights of the 10mm became easier to focus on. Upon inspecting the door control, she realized she was going to need a pip boy. Scanning the room with her eyes, they fell upon a pile of dusty bones. Still around the wrist was a pip boy. Marigold unapologetically pulled the pip boy free of its resting place and secured it on her wrist. An irrational urge to spit on the bones came over her, but it passed. Whoever this had been wasn't around to see her ire.

As the great door ground open, protesting and creaking and rusted, Marigold stood on the platform, unsure of what she would find outside. She had no way of knowing how much time had passed or what the outside conditions were like. What if the radiation levels were still at unsafe levels? 

She shook her head. There was nothing here in this vault for her but death. The thought of living in this vault, of sharing it with her dead husband, of never knowing what had happened to her son, made her throat constrict in grief and anger and determination. Squaring her shoulders, she stepped onto the lift and pressed the button to go up to the surface. Whether a war still raged up there or not, she had a war of her own to wage.


	2. Cambridge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marigold meets Danse

**Cambridge**

Marigold looked up at the night sky. The sun had finally gone down below the hills, and the cool breeze was blessed relief against her sweaty skin and shirt damp with sweat. The fabric clung to her, only serving to accentuate her too-lean frame. She had spent nearly two weeks helping Preston and his handful of Minutemen shape Sanctuary Hills into something more befitting of its name. Wire fences and gun turrets placed, old furniture drug away and burned, human remains disposed of. She lifted her hand and took a drag of her cigarette, shifting her weight to be more comfortable on the rooftop. She hadn't smoked in years. Not since Nate insisted the things would kill her. An irony that bore no joy.

How much life had changed. She had stumbled into a world ravaged by bombs, unrecognizable from the life she had known before. Mutated animals, mutated humans, raiders and gunners and the horrendous super mutants. Daily, she woke from troubled dreams and swung her feet over the edge of her bed only to reel in the realization that she was a woman out of time.

Years back, on a tour in Syria, she remembered her commanding officer screaming at them to take cover. One of the insurgents had gotten close enough to lob a flashbang grenade. Marigold had been too close when it went off, and it was like being slapped in the face - a stinging shockwave, her ears ringing, and then gunfire rang out as her squadmates took out the attacker. That dazed feeling, that ringing in her ears, that feeling of displacement, was how she felt each day when she sat up. Sometimes it would only take her a moment to reorient. Sometimes it would take 15 minutes of holding her head in her hands, eyes closed, focusing on her breathing, to make the ringing stop.

The worst dreams were not the ones about gunning down super mutants or battling that hellish Deathclaw. The worst ones were the ones that slipped insidiously into the most tender parts of her subconscious. Dreams where Nate was alive. She would wake up with her lips tingling as if his thumb had just barely been grazing them gently, her cheek warm from his hand cupping it, crying in the darkness. Even as she pulled herself from the depths of sleep she felt in her very marrow that he was gone and she was losing him again to the waking day.

She slept in the house farthest from the others, embarrassed by the keening wail she sometimes woke herself up to. What would the others think? Wastelanders were made of iron. They had grown up in this nightmare. She felt like an imposter. A tourist. She felt as though the only place she could mourn was in her own bed, when she was finally alone.

She had seen her share of battlefields, heard her share of gunfire and explosions. She had held the hands of dying soldiers and been the instrument of death herself. Nothing in all her years spent as a soldier had prepared her for this. She would never forget her first encounter with super mutants - the acrid stench of burning flesh in her nostrils, the realization that it was human meat they were cooking. The blood-and-bone drenched grounds, and those nightmarish hounds bounding towards her, slavering over their next meal. She had cleared their camp, no easy feat - and when it was done and she stood amongst their corpses littering the ground, soaked in blood that was both hers and that of the mutants, she had promptly leaned over and emptied the meagre contents of her stomach. 

In the past, on the field of battle, Marigold had learned to turn on an autopilot of sorts. She had let her body and her training take command, and set that part of herself - the part that loved and hurt and dreamed - into the back of her mind. Her body became a vessel with a mission, disconnected from her heart. In this way, she could separate herself from things that would otherwise break her. In this new and terrible world, it was all that kept her together. Mostly together, that is. If you chipped away all the things that made you human, the deciding factor between death or survival was what was left beneath your picked over and bared ribs.

She had let herself grow complacent, she thought, blowing a smoke ring into the night. She had let love and family soften her; let it crack open her shell and pour its molten sweetness in. What was it she had said to Nate, half jokingly, into a steamed up mirror? _ War never changes. _ Despite knowing exactly how terrible and inevitable the course of humanity was, despite seeing it firsthand, she had decided to get married and play house. Soft. Stupid.

She closed her eyes and felt a teardrop slide down her temple and into her mass of tangled dark hair beneath. It was hard to breathe. When she wasn't focused, when she wasn't keeping herself occupied, it was like a great hand wrapped itself around her and squeezed until she could no longer inhale, could no longer fight. Drowning without water. No air. She took shuddering breaths, stuttering within her paralyzed ribs, her vision was closing in on her. Marigold took her cigarette and pressed it into the crook of her left elbow. Felt the burning and the pain, and with it the relief flooding into her as her head broke the water. It would be another scar to add to the others.

She would drink whiskey tonight. Maybe this time the dreams wouldn't come.

  
  





The following morning, restless, Marigold shouldered her backpack, called Dogmeat to her, and set out. Her head was pounding, her eyes straining in the bright morning light, but she couldn't sit still any longer. The German Shepherd bounded gleefully ahead, sniffing plants, testing the wind, loping back to her before dashing off again. The dog had been a godsend, coming to her when she needed him most. How such an animal had come to be alone and... unchanged, was beyond her. The dogs she had run into prior to Dogmeat had all been mutated ferals bent on eating her for breakfast. But Dogmeat was a normal, albeit ferocious when necessary, dog. 

It was a pleasant day for the Wasteland. The night had been clear, and the new day dawned equally clear. All throughout the world there were endless signs of the devastation that had rocked the world. Crumbling remains of homes, rusted cars, skeletons picked over by animals and ravaged by time. The eeriness of a world made quiet by violence. On one occasion, while clearing a house and searching for supplies, Marigold had stepped into the back yard and stiffened. A swing set, rusted and near to collapse, stood in the backyard. The crumbling, small bones of a child lay in the dirt beneath the decayed swing. No doubt the child had borne the full brunt of the blast and now this yard was a permanent resting place. Marigold thought of Shaun, then, and wondered what his life in this world had been like.

She knew he was alive. She had learned that much, thanks to the help of Detective Nick Valentine. Together they had tracked down the scarred man who stole her son, and learned that Shaun had been taken by the Institute. The why of it all was still a mystery, but there was at least hope she would see her son again. She thought back to the chase; of tracking down Kellog. She replayed the moment where she had yanked him to her and jammed her pistol up against the underside of his jaw. In that fraction of a moment before blood and bone painted the console behind him, she had seen the recognition in his eyes; the knowledge that this was his final moment of life. The son of a bitch had grinned, and she had pulled the trigger. Valentine had given her space on their walk out of there, only handing her a handkerchief so she could wipe the blood spatter from her face. He knew her pain, knew the chasm of loss within her.

She had thought his death would bring some peace to her. It only made her angrier. Only deepened the ache. There had been no remorse in Kellog’s eyes. He was devoid of any human emotion - a man changed by a long career of killing. Nate was still dead and nothing was going to change that. That infuriating grin in Kellog's last seconds only drove it home more. Revenge was a taste only ashen and bitter on her tongue. After that, she had given herself over to the workload awaiting in Sanctuary. Building fences, cutting down trees, repairing water pumps, and wiring turrets in the hot sun kept her mind off the turmoil within herself. If she was not sleeping - or attempting, to, anyway - she was working. She had withdrawn, coiled within herself. Even Preston, with his sweet nature and kind words, couldn’t pull her from her shell. Her skin had darkened, freckles smattering every exposed inch of her. She had lost weight, and despite the sun kissed skin and hair, she had lost her appearance of health. Her cheeks were sunken, shadowed. Her eyes were haunted, dull, and bruised. When she looked at herself in the mirror, she would always turn away. She couldn’t look into those eyes anymore.

Dogmeat growled, and broke her from her reverie. On occasion, he would stop, stiffen, and growl - and that was when Marigold knew to unsling her shotgun and proceed with caution. Feral ghouls tended to come out of nowhere, and though she had grown accustomed to dispatching them, they still made her jumpy. Seeing those things rushing at her, hungry mouths and warped flesh, made her skin crawl. The shotgun was best for dispatching them - often they were near when roused, and the Saiga 12 was perfect for close combat. Messy, but effective. This time it was only one, rousing itself from where it lay beside a rusted tractor. She put a slug right between the eyes. Dogmeat's tongue lolled out of his mouth as he gazed up at her enthusiastically, before trotting off again. She shouldered the shotgun again and followed, shaking her head.

They worked their way south, towards Cambridge. As they neared it, Marigold's pip boy picked up an emergency broadcast: military frequency AF95. Switching to it, a woman's voice came on - identifying herself as Knight Haylen of the Brotherhood of Steel. It was an automated broadcast, requesting immediate fire support or evac from the Cambridge Police Department. They were overrun by hostiles. Thus far, Marigold had not had any run-ins with the Brotherhood. She only knew a little about the seclusive order, and had never seen one of their soldiers up close. Only from a distance, and usually entangled in a firefight with Super Mutants. Dogmeat chuffed at her, and Marigold looked down at him. “Yeah, yeah, I know,” she said, scritching behind one of his ears. “The Minutemen help all those in need. You’re right, let’s go.” She set off at a run, muttering a grateful epithet that it was mostly downhill. 

She could hear the staccato of guns long before they drew close. Slipping down an alleyway, Dogmeat right at her heels, they came out to the left of the old police department. There were feral ghouls everywhere, swarming, and more coming - drawn in by the gunfire. 

In the midst of the fracas a soldier in full power suit armor stood, fighting them off. Behind him she could see others, without armor. One was clearly hurt. The soldier in the power suit was holding the ghouls back, but just barely. Dogmeat was already in the fray, gleefully chomping on a withered ankle. In one fluid motion, Marigold flipped the drum-fed shotgun up into her hands and began firing. Wave after wave of the damned creatures poured into the compound. Marigold and the solider fought back to back, the bodies piling around them. After what seemed an eternity, quiet fell over the compound. Marigold wiped ghoul blood onto the legs of her customized jumpsuit, grimacing. Smoke rose from the hot barrel of her shotgun and she lowered it gingerly, not wanting to sling it over her back again until it had cooled somewhat.

The soldier turned to her, then, his armor coated in a sheen of gore. He removed his helmet, his face shining with sweat underneath. “We appreciate your assistance, civilian,” he said, his voice clipped. Authoritative. The voice of a man used to being in command. “But what is your business here?” 

He was tall, she could see that despite the power armor. She had to crane her neck to look him in the eyes. He sized her up. His eyes were like a forest floor - deep green, speckled with sunlight. Intelligent eyes, guarded. 

“I’m just trying to survive out here,” Marigold replied, flicking a chunk of ghoul from her shoulder. “Like anyone else.” 

He was was suspicious at first, his brow furrowed in suspicion, but Marigold explained she was from Vault 111. He told her of their trouble with getting a signal to command, and before Marigold was quite sure how it happened, she found herself agreeing to help him obtain a Deep Range Transmitter from ArcJet Systems.

Following the soldier - whom she now knew as Paladin Danse - down the road to ArcJet, she wondered at the immediate kinship she felt with him. Maybe it was the familiarity that often forms between soldiers. _ In the end, aren’t we all fighting the same war? _ She thought. Gruff exterior or not, she knew the flicker in those eyes. He was a good leader, and someone who commanded respect. There was a time she might have felt the same about herself, but this place had changed her… and she wasn’t sure it was for the better.  _ Bits of bone and blood, warm spray across her skin, a grin slipping as death takes hold. _

-

Marigold always followed her gut, and when Danse invited her to join the brotherhood, she felt it was the right thing to do.  _ How many wasteland clubs can I join before I have to buy a membership?  _ She thought, making herself smile. She decided she would hang back, observe, decide how she felt about this organization. She had heard some good things, and some bad things. Preston didn’t know much about them himself. 

The Prydwen was fascinating. She was impressed that something that large had been maintained for so long. As their vertibird neared the bulky shape, Danse told her a little about it. She was learning that any time weapons of any kind were involved, he got more than a bit excited. When she had seen the name carved on his laser rifle,  _ Righteous Authority _ , she had laughed out loud and he had grumbled self-consciously. A big grown man, naming his toys. Some things truly never changed.

Elder Maxson had the charisma of youth. At 20, he was 10 years her junior, but carried himself with the pridefulness of a man used to power. Standing among the rest of the crew, listening to him address everyone, she had mulled him over - carefully taking in and weighing each word. He was passionate with his sentiments, but Marigold wondered how much of his own speech he believed. He claimed to care about the people of the commonwealth; but after a discussion with Proctor Teagan about ‘acquiring’ resources from settlers, Marigold began to get the impression a lot about Maxson was word, not deed. There was little substance to back up his pontificating. From what she had seen, they seemed to be more like hall monitors than protectors of humanity. She didn’t think she liked him, or trusted him. Danse’s admiration for Maxson was clear. All of the Brotherhood seemed to practically worship the man. 

As she made her way around the airship, shaking hands, familiarizing herself with the crew, she wondered at her earlier good feeling about joining. These people spent a lot of time… hating. They hated Super Mutants most of all, which was a sentiment Marigold understood. Though her sentiment towards them was more a combination of fear and pity. But they also hated ghouls - feral and otherwise. They hated synths, and coveted any and all technology. And their distinctive disdain for even the people of the commonwealth surprised her.

They were in a world all their own. There was nothing outside the Brotherhood for them - only things to kill or conquer. Still, despite all her misgivings, Marigold felt being on the inside and able to judge the situation from within was better than being on the outside. And she felt her initial analysis of Paladin Danse was correct - He was a good man. A soldier, yes, but the way he obviously cared about his team and the pride he had in them said a lot about him. The light in his eyes when he talked about them or to them betrayed a softness about the man. The question was: In a situation where he would have to choose the side that was right, or the Brotherhood...Which would he choose?


	3. Demons Within

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marigold reaches a breaking point while on a mission for the Minutemen.

**Demons Within**

Danse, as always, was quiet until prompted. It was perhaps Marigold’s favorite quality in him. He knew when to speak and when to remain quiescent.

They had spent days trekking across the commonwealth to reach a small farm - concerned family had begged the Minutemen to check on their daughter and her family after they did not make their usual visit to the city. As soon as the farm came into view, Marigold knew they were too late. They crossed the field of dead brahmin in silence. The animals had died cruelly - some cut to shreds by an unknown blade, some full of holes. There were calves dead beside their mothers. There was a blast area where someone had lobbed a grenade, and a couple brahmin had bled to death, missing limbs. Marigold’s gut clenched. The whole thing had the stink of raiders about it.

The house had been burned to the ground; personal belongings littered the dirt in front of the pile of sooty beams and ash. They found the daughter, dead where she had fallen - a machete still lodged in her shoulder, cut all the way down into her collarbone and stuck there. Flies buzzed around the congealed and crusted blood. Her milky eyes stared up at the sky. Her husband and son were strung up from the old dead oak tree, left to hang until someone cut them down. Marigold closed her eyes, she could feel the angry pulse beating behind them. Knowing raiders, the woman had been the last to die - made to watch as they murdered her family, razed her farm, before at last killing her as the punchline to their fun. 

Marigold clenched and unclenched her fists, willing the rage to wait - it wasn’t time for that yet. She crouched and inspected footprints, working her way along the path they’d traveled. “These are relatively fresh,” she said at last, and stood. “Three days old at most. It should be enough to go on.” Danse nodded grimly, his eyes glittering as he took in the carnage around them. “Ready when you are.”

They followed the track for hours, sometimes Marigold lost sight of them, but would locate them again. The advantage to a world half-dead was there wasn’t much life to disturb the soil. The sun was setting when they at last spotted the tents, surrounded by a hastily made fence, in a copse of skeletal trees.

The raiders were lax, lazy in their recent conquest. Half of them were asleep in a drunken stupor. Those on watch were halfway there themselves, empty bottles of Gwinnett Stout and vodka littering their camp. After scouting around the camp under cover of darkness, Marigold returned to Danse. 

“I want you to set up on that hilltop over there,” she instructed. “I want to do this quick and quiet, and with your armor you’re not the stealthiest option.” He smiled at that, but nodded. “You cover me. If anything goes south, open fire and give them hell.” 

“That’s an affirmative,” Danse responded, slinging the Barrett .50 over his shoulder. “If you hear a shot, you’ll know you’ve been compromised.”

Marigold slipped through the poorly constructed junk fence, shielded from firelight by the tents. She reached down within herself and grabbed hold of that rage she had set aside, let it fill her, let it course through her. Now it was time to let it run its course, let it take part in the vengeance. Silent as a shadow, she crept up behind her quarry and in one fluid movement, clapped a hand over the raider’s mouth and opened his throat from ear to ear. His surprise was short-lived, as bubbles from his severed airway frothed through the arterial spray before he went limp. She lowered the body to the ground before stalking the next. Blood thrummed in her veins, pounded in her ears. She felt something within herself - a tenuous thread - snap, but it was drowned out in the tumult of adrenaline and anger flooding her body.

There were twelve of them, but she did not waver, did not flag. She imagined her knife singing in her hand as she took each life. Once the guards were down, she moved on to the sleeping raiders - and those were almost more rewarding, for she could look them in the eyes as she plunged the knife into the soft neck tissue, feeling it give way as the blade found its mark. She was in a frenzy, hot blood sprayed her face and she reveled in it. Her hands were slick with it, but she never lost purchase on the textured grip. 

She let the last raider scream. She let him see her, gave him a moment to realize the end was coming. She let him scream and she allowed herself more than one cut. One for the dead woman. One for her husband. One for her son. And the last one…for Nate. She sunk the blade in slowly, twisting it, as the raider bucked under her, screaming in terror as he looked up at her - and she found herself screaming back at him. She screamed and screamed and screamed, all the anger and fear and despair she’d felt since waking came from her in a torrent, clawing at her vocal chords on the way out.

Hands on her arms. For a moment she fought wildly, twisting in them, before realizing the leather gloves within the gauntlets belonged to Danse. She let herself go limp, a ragdoll in his grasp, and he pulled her off the dead raider, held her up until her feet could find purchase again. Her breath was ragged, labored. She sucked in air as if it were her last, and realized she was shaking violently - the combat knife still clenched tightly in her fist. The world spun and she felt herself falling. She was dimly aware of steel-clad arms catching her.

She did not wake until morning. She looked at her hands, touched her face. Her throat was raw, her mouth dry - her tongue leaden. She was relatively clean. Most of the blood was gone from her hands, though there were telltale dark crescents under her nails, dark stains in the creases of her knuckles. She wore an incredibly oversized shirt - obviously Danse’s, not hers. It fell to mid thigh, affording some modesty at least. Her clothing was folded neatly beside her, though they were crusted in dry blood. Her hair was filthy, still in the previous day’s braid.

Shame washed over her as the memories of the night flooded into her. She raised a hand to her mouth, stifling a moan, aghast. She had been a thing possessed, completely out of her mind. She looked around, and there was no sign of Danse. He had left her, after seeing what an insane mess she was. Her heart beat wildly in her chest as she grappled with the realization - but then her eyes fell in a poorly scrawled note, tucked next to her bedroll. Danse’s handwriting was atrocious and she recognized it immediately. “On a perimeter patrol. Back soon. Food in rucksack.” Marigold’s stomach clenched at the thought of food. There was a metallic taste in her mouth she recognized, but it was not her own blood. She gagged and grabbed her canteen, swishing water and spitting until the taste was gone.

So, Danse hadn’t left. He had carried her back to their camp, wiped off the gore the best he could, changed her from her saturated clothes - she found herself turning bright red at that thought - and left her to rest. She supposed he was a more loyal man than she’d given him credit for. Anyone with sense would have left her side by now. There were demons within her, and she feared what they meant.

When Danse returned, he did not comment on the night’s events. Only gave her an update on what he’d seen on his patrol, discussed the plan for their return to Diamond City, and helped pack up the camp. She had changed fully while he was away, and gave him back his shirt - not without a little embarrassment, her ears pinking at the mortification of it. Then, having kicked dirt over the remaining embers of their fire, they set off again to report the dismal news to Preston.


	4. Wounds That Will Not Mend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fear of forgetting a face.

**Wounds That Will Not Mend**

  
  


“Fuck,” Marigold said. Or tried to say. It came out more like ‘Feeerrrrkkk.’ She had seen the super mutant in the nick of time - turning just when he was nearly on top of her, hideous face bared in a grin, a huge club raised. She had rapid-fired three shots, center mass, into the brute as the gap between them closed. He was dead before he fell on her. Lying under the massive creature, gagging on the stink of him - rotting meat in his teeth, sweat and blood and the stink of hounds on his skin - she considered vomiting, but realized there was no breakfast in her stomach. She strained with all her might. Super mutants ranged from 400 - 500 lbs, and it was all muscle. The product of exposure to the Forced Evolution Virus, super mutants were massive, aggressive, and immune to radiation. And boy, did they hate humans.

Marigold pushed and pushed. If she could just roll him to the side a little bit, she might be able to get him off before one of her ribs popped under the weight of him. She both felt and heard the clomping of Paladin Danse’s power armor as he came close, having finished fighting his own opponent. His face filled the small bit of sky she could see. “It seems like you need some assistance,” he said. His voice was its usual deep, steady, dry tone - but she sensed the undercurrent of amusement in it. He was enjoying this. Marigold rolled her eyes. “Will you just get him off me, Danse, damn it,” she wheezed. At that, Danse smiled briefly. When he smiled, which was rare, it was halfway - one side of his mouth quirking up and a slight dimple appearing before the fleeting amusement disappeared. Gripping the dead mutant, he easily rolled the brute off her. 

Marigold drew a deep breath, savoring the fresh air and lack of stink. She was soaked in super mutant blood and covered in thick, black mud. Dogmeat rasped her face with a wet tongue and she groaned. “Ugh, no, bad dog,” she said halfheartedly, before struggling into a sitting position. Danse extended an arm. The half smile and telltale dimple were gone but she could see mirth in his eyes and it irked her. She swatted at his hand and clambered to her feet on her own.

“Let’s make camp somewhere, preferably near a stream,” she gestured at her filthy suit. Danse nodded. “There is one close to us. To the north. We passed by it a ways back.” Marigold cursed once more for good measure when she saw the amount of mud on her pack and up the barrel of her rifle. Around them was one hell of a scene of carnage. This pack of super mutants had been terrorizing the residents of ‘The Slog’, a public pool turned tarberry farm, and Marigold had promised she would help the settlers and rid them of the problem. She regretted being too late to help the settlers who had lived here before the mutants. There were bodies in the shack, and cuts of meat hanging by the fire that made Marigold’s stomach roil yet again. They had been a family… and they had died badly.

She felt her hand tremor slightly as she holstered her .45 and slung the filthy M4 over her back again. Danse was inspecting the dead, collecting ammo and any supplies that might be of use. He didn’t see the shake, didn’t see her close her eyes for a moment.  _ In for five seconds, out for five seconds _ . This is a battlefield and these are the dead. This is the way it is now.  _ In for five seconds, out for five _ . She heard Danse standing again and she opened her eyes, started moving north, her face averted until she could trust herself. Until she could regain control.

While Danse made a fire and checked the camp’s perimeter, Marigold slipped away to wash off in the stream. The sun was sinking in the sky and the Wasteland was bathed in an orange glow. Sunsets held no joy here, only made the shadows of skeleton trees long dead stretch across the rocky ground. Radscorpions and ghouls preferred the night as well, but on this rocky outcrop Marigold didn’t imagine they would be bothered too much. She and Danse had chosen this spot for its vantage point and unapproachability. 

She wiped down her suit the best she could, the carbon fiber weave came clean easily enough. Her hair, bound in a braid, was something else entirely. It fell to her hips, inky as the night would soon be, and was absolutely crusted with the black, bloodied mud she had lain in. She detangled it the best she could with her fingers and dipped her head in the cool water, rubbing and scrubbing until it was relatively clean. She knew it would be more practical to shear off the length of it, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Nate had loved her hair. Cutting it was another little piece of Nate’s memory she could not bear to lose. She used sand from the bank to scour the dirt and blood from her hands, under her nails, her boots. There was no soap in the wasteland, so you used what was available to you.

When she was as clean as she could possibly get, she climbed up on a large, flat rock overlooking the creek and area below. She lay down, fanning her hair out on the rock, in the hopes it would dry some with the remembered warmth of the fading sun. Her body ached from being crushed into the mud, from traipsing through the wasteland for weeks. Her stomach clenched with hunger, but sometimes... she simply could not bring herself to eat. Her body’s desire was there but she felt sick in her soul almost constantly. When she stopped and let her thoughts wander, heartsickness swept over her, debilitating and weakening her. She feared the quiet moments, when her mind found time to wander. She wavered like a candle’s flame between wishing the earth would swallow her up, and a desperate need to find her son and wreak true vengeance. Kellog was only a puppet, and Marigold sought the puppeteer. She closed her eyes, and the warmth of the rock beneath her soothed her tired body. 

  
  
  


_ She was laughing, and Nate was, too. Joy, bright and fierce, danced in his eyes as their mirth slowly died down. They lay in bed, legs tangled, sheets bunched and twisted about their bodies. Sun streamed in through the large bay window and kissed their skin with its warm light. He stroked her arm with delicate fingers, the soft downy hairs standing on end in the trail of goosebumps he left. She shivered, not unpleasantly, and in that moment she was so happy, so content, she felt embarrassed. Awkward. She ducked her head to hide her face, under the pretense of nestling in closer to him. She felt naked. Not in the literal sense, though indeed she was in that regard as well. She felt bared, fragile, a porcelain vase teetering on a shaky shelf. A bump, a slip, and she’d be done for. _

_ Nate’s fingers stroked lazy circles on her lower back now, and he nuzzled her head, breathed in the smell of her.  _

_ That night had been the first time they made love. Hours earlier, she had told him she was officially enlisted with the United States Marines. He hadn’t fought her on it. He knew what it meant to her. Her plan had been to finish college first, but at 20 and with two years of community college under her belt, her legendary impatience won out. She wanted to serve her country, as her father had until his death. She kept his flag, neatly folded in its case, on her bedside table always. Enlisting was her way of paying tribute to him, of thanking him for making her the young woman she’d become. When she’d called Nate to tell him the news, he’d suggested they meet up for celebratory drinks. The conversation was strained, however - a lot on both of their minds - and they paid the tab early. _

_ They had stood next to her car; him with his long-fingered hands jammed into his pockets, her fidgeting with her keys anxiously. She was leaving, and didn’t want it to be goodbye. Didn’t want things to change, but at the same time desperately wanted them to. He didn’t know how she felt, she had never been able to tell him. She lived in fear that if she told him, that would be the end of everything. Maybe he’d rebuff her, not feeling what she felt, and she’d have thrown it all away for nothing. _

_ “I know,” he’d said, breaking the silence. “It’s your dream and I know it’s all you have ever wanted.” **All I want is you** , she had screamed internally. But the words did not come. She looked him in the eyes, feeling like a prisoner in her own body. Unable to say the words trapped in her throat. He gazed back. In that moment, she felt as though she could physically see a shift in him. He didn’t say anything more, but something in his dark eyes moved. He seemed to hear the voice crying within her, saw something there in her own eyes. Without another word he had stepped forward, so close their bodies nearly touched. He slid a hand around the nape of her neck, his fingers embedding in her thick hair, and paused for a moment. She stopped breathing. Her mouth went dry. Her heart was thudding so loudly she feared the entire world could hear it. She could feel the ferocity of it down to her fingertips. _

_ And then he had kissed her, deliberately and hard - a hello and a goodbye all at once. She felt her lips press into her teeth and then part of their own accord, giving in to the pressure of his mouth on hers. Her body was molten, fluid, mercurial, and only his arms - one still at her nape and the other now wrapped around her body, pulling her close - kept her grounded. They stood there, lost in eachother, while the sunset painted the sky in coral watercolor. When the cool night air finally began to make her shiver, they went to his place. His sparse studio apartment screamed college student. What little belongings he had were strewn about in disarray. They barely made it through the door, breathless and pink in the cheeks, alternating between laughing and kissing. He’d lifted her up easily, her legs wrapped around his waist, and carried her to the bedroom. _

_ Marigold had never realized how incomplete her life was until Nate. She felt as if she had been wandering in the woods her whole life, and just now had found the treeline and stepped into the light. When they were sated, and darkness had settled in the apartment, Nate at last flicked on a bedside lamp. Turning back towards her again, she heard his sound of surprise, followed by a hand on her cheek. “Mari, you’re crying,” he said, concerned now. “Are you okay?” She nodded, not even trying to wipe them away. Letting them flow felt like a necessary and natural thing in the moment. “Yes,” she said softly, her hand rising to clasp his. She kissed his fingers. “I just feel like I’ve been waiting a very long time for you.” He nuzzled in closer to her, and kissed her on the forehead with the gentleness of a butterfly alighting. The sensation was an arrow through her. “I love you, too,” he replied. _

  
  


Marigold woke, sobbing and hyperventilating. It was dark and she was cold, and for a brief moment she wasn’t sure where she was. The sky was dotted with stars and she could make out the outlines in the distance of trees and shrubs. The creek burbled next to her. Her face was streaked with hot tears and she had been curled up tightly on her side. In the midst of her disorientation, she realized she was not alone. She jerked upright, hand on her gun. Off to her right, Paladin Danse sat on a rock. He was out of his power armor now, wearing only his jumpsuit. She relaxed a little, but was mortified he had seen her in such a state. 

“I have them sometimes, too,” Danse said quietly. “Bad dreams. You think time heals, will make them better. Make them go away. They seem to always come back, though.” There was no judgement in his eyes, rather, she thought she saw kindness in them. Understanding. Memories of his own loss. She felt the tension slowly leave her, and she turned her face away from him. For a long time there was only her distressed breathing, and the stillness of the night. Danse made no move to leave, said no more, and she was surprised to find his presence comforting.

“I don’t think I want them to stop,” she finally spoke. “Even though it feels as though they’re killing me. I am afraid that if they stop, I will lose something I can’t get back. Even if it hurts me. What if I--” and here she choked, before regaining herself. “What if I forget his face? What if I forget his voice? What if one day I wake up and there’s only a shadow left in my mind of what he was?” She fought her chin trying to crumple, fought the quaver in her voice. “What if the dreams stop, and he is really and truly gone?”

“He will never be gone,” Danse’s voice was filled with empathy. “The hurt will lessen, yes. But as it abates, he will still be there. You can heal without losing what you had.”

She brought her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. “I feel as though I have these wounds that will not mend. As though great holes have been torn through me, so huge and raw and painful I can’t see how they will ever close. Breathing is pain, sleeping is pain, walking the living world is pain. I don’t know how to mend them. I am…” she searched for words. “...bleeding out. Without spilling a drop.”

“You will mend, Marigold,” he said softly. His use of her name surprised her. “I promise that much. You are a strong woman and in time, this pain will become a memory. But the love you felt for him will not fade. It will always be there, always be a part of who you are. And it is that very love that will ultimately heal the wounds, not time.”

They sat together in the dark, and eventually her tears lessened and finally stopped. At last she stood, and followed Danse back to the camp and the warm fire it held. This time, she slept, and if dreams troubled her - she had no memory of them upon waking.


	5. A Precipice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Releasing the death grip on guilt and pushing forward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was hard to write. There is a lot of me in this story, and I cried through most of it.

**A Precipice**

The edge of the cliff was crumbling, but Marigold stood at the fringe of it, feeling the silt shift beneath her boots. Below, the ravine stretched in both directions as far as she could see. Wind whipped at her braid, at her bomber jacket, filling the air with dust. She pulled her kerchief tighter over her nose and mouth; grit was in her teeth, at the back of her throat. She had been tracking a group of raiders for a day now, and they had made it easy - leaving behind them a trail of chaos. A kidnapped settler, a trade caravan shot dead down to the last brahman, a ransacked camp. They had at least reached this canyon and turned south. It wouldn’t be long now. She was close, judging from the still-warm embers of their camp fire. 

She had chosen to come on this mission alone. She had wanted the space, the quiet. The Wasteland had become as familiar to her as though she had lived in it all her life. Sometimes she would spend a day or two in a carefully chosen sniper’s nest, picking off raiders and super mutants alike, knowing the traveled road would be much safer for traders and settlers in the following weeks. The isolation granted her the solace she needed. Her hands were callused, her muscles taut sinew, her frame lean and strong again. Civilian life had shed from her like a second skin. Surviving in this place demanded as much. 

Standing here, now - looking down into the chasm - she was overcome with a senseless urge to step off the edge. Just one step, then air, then falling. A flightless bird plummeting down and down and down into the dark. She kicked a rock in and watched it fall, felt a longing deep in her gut. A yearning to flee from all of this. Before the bombs fell, you could simply get in a car and drive until that desire abated. Here, in this world, there were no such escapes - and no place was truly different from the last. Dust and muck, sweat and blood and tears. Dusty traders, careworn settlers who had known nothing but loss. Every settlement was the same as the last. For each raider she killed, two more desperate people took their place. 

The cliff edge began to collapse under her, giving way under her weight. She jumped back as the ground she stood on tumbled into the abyss. As she watched the chunks of dirt and rock fall, she felt nausea. What had come over her? This was not her. She had never been one to back down from anything, and she had stood at that edge and considered running in a way that could never be taken back. How far she had come from being her father’s daughter. On the edge of that cliff she had been a person she did not recognize anymore.

“I’m sorry,” she yelled, into the sky and the yawing canyon and the whirling wind. “I’m sorry,” again, but her voice broke on the second cry. She fell to her knees, then, rocking back onto her heels. Face upturned and eyes closed. “I’m sorry.” A whisper now; meant only for her own ears.

Inexplicably, warmth surrounded her - and she felt… no. That was impossible. She would know the sensation of his presence anywhere, in any time, and it was as though he were here now. Nate. She had felt this way thousands of times, in his arms. When she was doing something and he would walk up behind her and wrap his arms around her, kissing the ticklish spot on her neck. When she’d come home on leave and fall into his arms at the airport, and they’d clutch each other as if it were the first and last time. Their wedding day, when he pulled her in for a hug so tight he crushed her bouquet, much to the chagrin of the bridesmaids. How he had looked at her before pulling her close on the day she told him she was pregnant. Thousands of moments, memories of a love so great it could not be felt without a little pain, swirling around her in the vortexes of wind. He was here. She felt him as surely as she ever had in her life.

She was awash in a feeling of love so absolute it drowned out all other surroundings; and she wept in the power of it. All these months she had felt so alone, and now he was here - in the moment where she had needed him most.

“I love you.” She rocked on her heels, arms wrapped about herself. “I love you and I miss you. Each day without you feels like another stitch coming undone. I am unraveling piece by piece. I am losing all the things that made me your Mari. I am losing myself.”

She knew what he would say if he were here. He would tell her she was stronger than this. That the woman he loved could overcome anything. And, she thought, ashamed, he would trust her to take care of their son. He had always been the better part of her; kinder and wiser and more pragmatic. She had been the one with the temper and impulsiveness. She could try to blame the years of service for it, but she knew better. She had always been the one with the rough edges, and he had been the one who smoothed them. When they were kids, she always had skinned knees and bloodied knuckles from all the scraps she got in. Nate, being of considerably sounder mind, was the one who pulled her out of them.

If not to herself, she at least owed  _ him  _ more than this. She had been stumbling her way through this new life, half-blinded by anger and grief. Despair had clung to her like her own shadow, clouding her judgement and leeching all joy from her body. Standing at the mouth of that precipice and realizing she did not want to take that leap had changed her. She had felt a shift in herself. She opened her eyes. The world was unchanged; the wind still whipping across the Wasteland in a relentless current, but she felt a change blossoming within her. She felt the presence around her soften, ebbing away into the windy eddies. 

When she returned to Sanctuary the next day, her people welcomed her with usual aplomb. Slaps on the back, handshakes from new settlers, Preston enthusiastically telling tales of successes among the growing Minutemen. Once the throng of residents had dispersed, she headed towards the mechanic shop to drop off salvage. Danse was there, tinkering lovingly with his power armor. His fingers were black with grease, his face smudged everywhere he’d scratched an itch or swatted at something. He looked up when she walked in, dragging her netted bag of findings behind her. He scanned her with his deep green eyes, before saying in a knowing sort of tone, “Good outing, I take it.” 

That was one of the things she liked about Danse. He was a man of few words, and she never had to explain anything to him. He was as astute as he was intelligent and dedicated. She knew above all, the Brotherhood would come first for him… but she was grateful to have him relatively on her side, and for his willingness to have her back on missions.

She sat on a toolbox and popped open a Nuka Cola. “Yeah, it was… Good.” He nodded and turned back to his work. “What are you doing to your helmet now?” she asked, leaning in with interest. Danse played it cool, but the man loved his power armor more than anyone - even a member of the Atom Cats - could even come close to. Marigold rarely donned her set, as it was heavy and cumbersome and she preferred the litheness of her custom jumpsuit. On the occasion she did, however, she had more than once heard an approving grumble out of Danse when she climbed into the power armor. 

“Installing a new infrared targeting module,” he replied, not losing focus on the socket wrench he was turning. “It will light up living targets like Christmas.” She waved towards her own power armor, standing just outside the garage. “Feel free to update mine, too, while you’re at it.” He raised an eyebrow disapprovingly and Marigold chuckled. “I’m joking. I know. A soldier is responsible for their own equipment.” She said the last part in her best amalgamation of Danse’s sonorous voice. He feigned annoyance, grimaced and rolled his eyes at her before returning to his work, but she knew he wasn’t displeased with her. 

“Danse,” she said, after a few minutes of comfortable silence between them. He looked up at her tone and his hands paused. “I think it’s time I gave the teleporter schematic to Sturges. I think it’s time I found my son.” 

She had kept that precious document hidden away in her belongings chest, unsure of the hesitation she felt at using it. Maybe it was the fear that Shaun was dead, too, or that he wasn’t her son but somehow changed. All the things she had heard about the Institute swirled through her head. All the synths she had seen replacing human beings. She thought back to the one shot dead in the middle of the Diamond City Market. What if the Institute had replaced her son?

And so she had held on to it and waited. She hadn’t told Preston or anyone else about the schematic. Only Danse knew. Danse had been at her side all the way across the Glowing Sea in the search for Virgil. Together they survived the radscorpions, Deathclaws, and numerous other unpleasantries to finally reach Atom’s Crater and then Virgil’s cave.

He hadn’t questioned her on it, had given her the space and time she needed to sort out all the churning thoughts and fears in her head. Solid and stalwart until the end. She hadn’t needed to thank him, couldn’t really form the words, but she knew from the way he looked at her that he knew what she felt and understood it. “If you need me, I will have your back,” he said quietly. “You just tell me what I can do.” 


	6. Goodbyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marigold says goodbye to her son.

**Goodbyes**

Marigold finished typing the commands into the terminal, and stood to leave the Institute for the last time. The gunfire in the common areas ceased as the synths shut down. She looked over at Shaun again. He had closed his eyes, turned his head from her. The cancer had weakened him, left him gaunt and tired. Dark circles, like two bruises, shadowed his eyes. Marigold looked at him but felt only hollow. She had felt no bond with this grown man who was her son. She thought back to finding him for the first time. Her shock and confusion at the replica of her 10 year old son. More confusion at meeting the much older man who truly was her son.

They had spoken. She had so many questions, but his answers unsettled her. How casual he had been about Nate’s death. What was it he had said? “His death was an unfortunate bit of collateral damage.” She had felt anger, then, hostility rising in her unbidden. To have that memory, so painful and still fresh in her mind, brought to light and tossed aside by Shaun - his son - of all people, had shocked her. 

She had felt her heart close a little, then, more layers built onto the wall already around it. All the hopes she’d had about her reunion were like doors within her heart, shutting one by one, as she learned more about the man her son had become. What she learned about his work with the Institute had sickened her. She had seen how disposable human life was to him and his people - and had felt herself withdrawing, a tired resolve hardening within her chest. It saddened her, how much easier he made it to dissociate from him. When the time came to orchestrate the takedown of the Institute, she searched her heart and found only calm acceptance.

The baby she had brought into this world was gone. The child who should have grown up with the love of his father did not exist. This was a child raised by scientists, groomed to be their tool, in a world so isolated from the people of the commonwealth he had never learned true compassion or empathy. He had never seen true suffering and considered solving it in a way that did not demand more of the same. His response to anything to do with the surface was generally disgust - as though that world and everything in it was beneath him. He could not understand her relationship with the Minutemen, could not understand why she worked so hard to establish peace across the commonwealth. To him, they were rats, meant to serve as experiments or to die.

How many innocent people had been kidnapped, interrogated, and disposed of before being replaced by the Institute? How many had been twisted and tortured by the FEV experiments before being loosed aboveground? The Institute was no different than any other power in human history; atrocities committed at will and without remorse, in the name of the common good. Always done with the promise of hope, a future, a better tomorrow. 

The difference here, at least, was that the Institute operated exclusively in the shadows and left no room for recourse of self defense. They used their power and their technology to do as they willed, and there was no democracy here. When he had overridden the opinions of his board members to place her in the seat of power, her memory had gone back to various dictators over the course of human history. An entire organization acting upon the whims of one leader never went well, if you bothered to flip through some history books.

Human beings had an inevitability to them. Somehow there were always those who followed the same brutal and cruel footsteps of their ancestors. Generation after generation, with the same tropes. Vault Tec. Hallucigen. The Institute. All shining examples of how bad human beings with money and power could be. The Brotherhood of Steel was an example of how even with the best intentions, an organization could change direction for the worse with the right (or wrong) leader. She had to admit to herself that wherever there was corruption, there was also good. She thought of her friends. Preston, who always put the good of the people first. Desdemona, who saw humanity in synths, and fought for their freedom, at great risk. 

Marigold wondered how different her life would have been if she had stayed enlisted, had not let Nate talk her into suburban life. She wondered at how different things would be if she had never bore their son. Or agreed to that space in the Vault just to get rid of the Vault Tec rep. Here she was, again getting caught up in thoughts of what-if and should-haves. The age old question of, if you could travel back in time - would you change anything? She didn’t think she would. Or could bring herself to. For all the pain she felt now, the love and joy she had felt in precedence had been worth it.

She neared the door, and heard Shaun cough weakly before saying, “I hope it was worth it.” Turning, she looked into his eyes one last time. “I’m sorry it had to be this way. Goodbye…son.”

And then she was gone, taking the stairs two at a time and making her way back to Preston, their team, and Danse.


	7. A New Reality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marigold stands up for Danse.

**A New Reality**

  
  


Marigold’s hand rested on the .45 at her hip. Her body, though appearing to be relaxed in posture, was wound tight. She had a quick hand and her adrenaline pumped through her, ready for a call to action. She watched Arthur Maxson charge down the hill from where the Vertibird had landed, saw the wrath on his face. Marigold had come out of the bunker the second she’d heard the whirring blades, known who it was. Danse came out behind her, looking defeated. They must have followed her, and she’d missed the tail. She opened her mouth to speak, her free hand held up in a warding gesture.

“I’ll deal with  _ you  _ in a moment!” Maxson snapped. 

He stopped about 20 paces from them, his brow darkened with rage and disgust. He looked at Danse as though he were a rotting feral ghoul. Marigold’s refusal to kill Danse had left the man in a fury, and she knew the ice they tread on now was very thin. One wrong word and it would be Marigold’s draw against Maxson’s. She was comfortable with her odds, but she knew the pain Danse felt. He admired Maxson, respected him. Loved him as a soldier loves a vaunted leader. Even hearing Maxson had ordered his death, at Marigold’s hands no less, he had only been saddened. He had practically laid himself down for the slaughter, rather to her horror. The anguished slump in his broad, normally proud shoulders had broken her heart. She could not kill Maxson without first attempting to make peace. She owed that much to Danse.

“After all the sacrifices I’ve made and all the battles I’ve fought for the brotherhood, you need to listen to me,” Marigold said calmly, her voice commanding. Her hand did not move from its resting place on the holster. “You owe me that much.”

Maxson’s eyes flicked over Danse and returned to meet Marigold’s again, their depths blazing with hate. “Very well, I’m listening.” 

  
  


After the confrontation, Marigold and Danse stood and watched the Vertibird take off and disappear into the horizon. In the end, there had been just enough humanity in Maxson after all. After quiet had settled over them again, Danse finally spoke. “It took a hell of a lot of guts to stand up to Maxson like that.” Marigold let out a long breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. 

“I thought I was going to have to shoot him.” 

He rested a hand on her shoulder, tentatively. She was surprised at the contact, looked up at him. “Thank you,” Danse said. “I didn’t want him to die. I can’t explain why, but I guess some part of me will always be one with the brotherhood. Arthur was a mentor to me. He was supposed to be the best of us.”

“What will you do now?” She asked, trying to keep the worry out of her voice. She realized she would be terribly sad if he left her now. But with the ties to the brotherhood cut, he had no real reason to stay. He looked thoughtful at this, looked back at the bunker behind them. 

“I suppose I could stay around. This bunker isn’t too bad. I might clean it up a bit, settle in.” 

Marigold groaned. “Danse, you are  _ not _ living in this bunker. Come back to Sanctuary. We have plenty of room. I’m not inclined to travel all the way out here every time I want to see if you’d like to grab lunch.” 

He grinned at that, then laughed out loud. The sound nearly made her jump. Had she ever heard him actually  _ laugh?  _ The light had returned to his green eyes. She would never forget the look that had been in them a short time before. When she had stepped into that room, he had thought she was the last thing he would ever see. He had accepted it, felt that death was the least he deserved. If he only knew what was in her heart, he would never have feared for a second. She’d have torched the entire Prydwyn to protect him. After everything they had been through together, there would be no hesitation in her call to arms. It was only out of respect for his love of the Brotherhood that she had not put a bullet between Maxson’s eyes the moment he stepped off that Vertibird.

Maxson’s terms had been explicit. As far as he was concerned, Danse was dead. If Danse was ever seen again, he would be shot on sight. 

“I suppose I could lend a hand around Sanctuary,” Danse mused. “Your Minutemen are grossly undertrained and could use proper instruction. And I know how you neglect your power armor.” 

Marigold rolled her eyes at him, and punched him in the arm - not too gently. “Come on, dead man,” she said. “Let’s put you to work shaping soft civilians into a proper militia.”


	8. The Glue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marigold's wounds have finally closed, and she realizes what is right in front of her.

**The Glue**

Marigold stood at the crafting bench, biting her lip in concentration as she carefully glued and seated the new custom grips on her knife. She gently wrapped some tape around the handle, to allow the Wonderglue to set before replacing the small grip screws. She tossed the old grips, cracked from a glancing bullet, into the salvage bin. Looking down at the work before her, she realized something. She, too, had been broken… and she, too, had been glued together. It had happened over time, without her realizing it.  _ Danse.  _ He had always been there, a quiet commiserator in the background. White noise, soothing her when she felt like she couldn’t keep going. 

She thought about the time she tripped on a rock and hurtled down a hill, smacking her head more than once before rolling to a stop at the bottom amid a bunch of hub flowers. Danse had ran down the hill to her side, his power armor making an incredible thudding racket, to stand over her with his eyebrows drawn together in concern. She had laughed. Laughed and laughed and laughed. “The mighty sole survivor,” she’d gasped, more than a little woozy from the knocks to her skull. “Done in by a rock.”

Grunting in disapproval and suppressing a smirk, Danse had reached down, gripped her hand, and pulled her up to her feet again. His bulky gloved hand had touched her briefly, gingerly, checking for contusions. The momentary warmth in his eyes as he examined her left a confused fluttering in her belly.

All this time, he had been pulling her to her feet. He had been checking to make sure her hurts - both external and in her heart - weren’t too terrible to survive. He had been the glue, slowly mending what was broken. She set the knife down on the bench. It would set, and the screws could wait. She needed to find Danse.

He was, of course, not sitting idly. He was patrolling the perimeter wall, proudly wearing his new suit of power armor. The two of them had worked on it together. The paint job was all her. She had the steady hand and patience required for such things. When he saw her approaching, he stopped, lowering his laser rifle and smiling. She had seen him smile more in these past weeks after leaving the Brotherhood than she had ever seen in all the months prior to the exodus. He was coming out of his shell, learning to relax. She had even heard him tell a terribly dry joke to Sturges the other day about a Mr Handy and a tractor, and walked away completely puzzled by the peals of laughter from both men.

“Come to take over?” He leaned against the wall. Out of the power armor, he already dwarfed her by a full head. In the power armor, he was two heads taller. “Can you pop out of that for a moment?” She asked, craning her neck to look up at him. “I can’t talk to you when you’re three feet taller than me.”

Danse shrugged and disengaged his armor, stepping out of it and standing before her again in his jumpsuit. “What is it?” he asked. “You’ve got a look about you that has me concerned.” 

She shook her head. “Danse, I want to talk to you, and I don’t… I’m not sure how to say it. Where to start. We’ve been on many missions together, spent countless hours in the wasteland with nothing to do but chat and pick off rad roaches… and I still don’t know what I need to say. Or how to say it.” 

He regarded her with an eyebrow cocked. His usual serious expression was back. “I’m not sure if you need my help, if I left my bunk unmade and you’re mad about it, or if you’re trying to dismiss my service right now. Speak plainly and I’ll do the same.” 

She felt her cheeks flush. “...For the longest time, all I could think about was what I’d lost. I’d turn my pain over and over in my mind, letting it blind me to everything else. I didn’t really think about the fact that all of us… everyone on our team, hell, everyone in the wasteland… has suffered loss just like I have. I didn’t see their pain. Didn’t hear it. I was wrapped up in pain of my own. Today, for the first time in a long time, I stopped thinking about everything I have lost. I realized I was thinking about what I’d found.” she ran a hand through her dark hair, struggling for words. “I found... you.”

She looked up into his eyes - green forests flecked with sunlight - and then turned her face away, heat blooming across her cheeks. She felt embarrassed and out of place. Then his warm hand closed around her own. Startled, she turned back to him. His eyes were molten with warmth.

“I told Maxson about how I’d felt things. He said I was just a machine. An abomination. But I told him how I’d felt sorrow for every soldier that fell. How I'd felt pride in the Brotherhood, in our work, in our dedication to our cause. That I felt hope, believing we were the salvation of the commonwealth,” she was frozen in place, but listened as he went on. “But one thing I did not tell him. One thing, I kept to myself - something that was all mine to feel. Something that has grown in my chest with each passing day, for a long time now. I can hardly bear the pressure of it.”

She couldn’t breathe.

_ “I felt love _ .” 

Marigold felt a little dizzy. The warm pressure of his hand on hers kept her grounded. She hadn’t expected this, and she held her breath - afraid to break this moment that hung in the air like gossamer. 

“It was not something I’d ever felt until I met you,” he said softly. “I wasn’t even sure of what it was. Not at first. But that day, when you were at my side before Maxson - when you stood up to him and talked him into letting me go, letting me live out my life in this new reality… that was when I knew it for what it was. I had never seen such bravery or selflessness. You should have seen the way you looked as you stood there, ready to fight the leader of the Brotherhood for me. Beautiful. Ferocious. Determined.” He smiled, then, and his other hand lifted to hold her chin delicately - as though she were made of porcelain. 

His fingers were rough and calloused, the sensation of his touch exquisite. She closed her eyes, and a tear slid down one cheek. Butterflies were doing somersaults in her stomach.

“Marigold,” he said, even softer. “Yes?” she murmured. He answered with a kiss - first where the tear had tracked its way down her cheek, and then another - His lips were gentle against hers, his stubble rough on her skin. It was the softest, most tender kiss she had ever experienced in her life.

  
  


-

  
  


They were on another one of their training runs. Danse was a cruel fitness coach, and lately they had been going on long rounds of free running. Over fallen trees, under them. Over boulders, around them. Up steep hills, down them. The first couple days of this, Marigold complained loudly. She felt like a graceless brahmin blundering through the trees and crashing far too often for her liking.

Each time, Danse made her get up, dust off, and get right back to it. “I hate you!” she cried at his back once time, as he gained ground on her, hurtling over a fallen alder tree. He  _ laughed _ .

Practice, as it generally does, makes perfect - and in time Marigold’s body responded to the conditioning. She put on muscle, but the healthy layer of fat she’d put on softened her. She no longer looked like she’d come from an enemy prison cell and slung a gun over her bony shoulder. She had a lustre to her again. Her hair shone healthy, collarbone length now, and her skin glowed - when not covered in dirt from all the running. She laughed often; her snappy New England humor returned to her. 

Today’s run had been uneventful. They had half-followed a Radstag trail and ended up in an area that could almost be considered beautiful. It had once been a forest clearing. A little creek ran through the middle of it, and new grass was tentatively growing all around. Thistles were in bloom, their spiky purple blooms undulating in the breeze. Marigold threw her ruck to the ground, and flopped down - resting her head on it like a pillow. Danse grumbled about how it wasn’t time for a break, but eventually gave in to her refusal to rise again and followed suit. 

They lay on their backs, watching the occasional bird fly overhead, enjoying the companionable silence. Marigold always felt like she was all elbows when he was in close proximity to her. She couldn’t come near him without feeling a trembling in her stomach. This love was new, tenuous, neither of them quite knowing what to do with it yet. It had been two weeks since he kissed her by the wall. Since that day, there had been little smiles, a caress stolen here and there. Once or twice a heartfelt kiss. Neither was sure they were ready to share this with the others. It was all theirs, only theirs.

Danse turned onto his side, and looked down at her, his eyes were lambent. “You are the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen,” he said softly, making her heart skip a beat. “Even when you have sticks in your hair.” He pulled a long twig from her hair, and she laughed, gently swatting his cheek. “I wouldn’t have sticks in my hair if you’d just let me be lazy and lounge in the sun with Dogmeat.” 

He responded with a kiss on her nose, and she crinkled it, feigning annoyance, but not fighting him when he drew her in for one of his famous knee-dissolving real kisses. Humor melted away as the intensity grew, and Marigold’s heart felt lodged in her throat as his free hand roamed through her hair, grazed over the delicate skin of her throat, slid down around her side and encircling her ribs - stopped. He drew back from her then, looking down at her. Her lips were swollen, her skin feverish, and she felt she might swoon with the need she felt for him. It was like going a day without water and at the end wanting to drink so much in it made you near sick.

His eyes were questioning, and she answered by rising halfway up to kiss him again. His hand resumed movement, coming up to rest at the top of her chest, then grasping the loop of her jumpsuit zipper - dragging it down in the most maddeningly slow descent . He stopped when he reached her navel. He was nearly as breathless as she was. He gently pulled her jumpsuit open, his hands exploring the expanse of her generous chest - heaving within her bra. Desire was aflame in him, the look in his eyes turned her insides upside down. She wanted to tear her jumpsuit off, devour him, but he pinned her to the ground.

“Not so fast,” he whispered in her ear, nibbling on the lobe and making her bite her lip and moan softly. “Always so impatient, Marigold.” He refocused on his task of unzipping her - kissing every inch of exposed skin. She was half mad by the time he reached the end of the seam, and then at last he allowed her to shuck the suit from herself and practically tear off his faded tee shirt.

Marigold felt every blood vessel in her body constrict at the sight of his bared body. He was beautiful, perfect. He was a lovely golden tan all over. Scars criss-crossed him sporadically, telling the story of his career as a soldier. He had a light patch of dark hair on his chest, matching that on his arms - not too thick, and soft. She ran her fingers through it, enjoying his sharp intake of breath. Grinning wickedly, she set to work - kissing every scar on his body languidly. He cheated by wearing his soldier’s poker face, but she could tell how crazy it was driving him by the involuntary twitches and movements of his muscles - and the determined set of his jaw. 

When she was done, he  _ growled _ at her - and she let out a startled little sound, half shriek, half giggle - as he grabbed her up into her arms, pulled her onto his lap, his face nuzzled into her neck while he fought with her bra and finally won. 

Her breasts free at last, he took them in his hands. She marveled at the contrast between the soft, pale, freckle-kissed skin and his rough, callused, golden hands. He kissed the tops of her breasts and then worked his way down, and she grabbed two handfuls of his thick, dark hair tightly - so completely undone she felt drunk. How long had it been? A year, a year since she had woken in that pod and stumbled into the commonwealth. A year since she’d felt the touch of anyone like this. Really, technically 211 years. She winced at the thought. 

He was losing his composure - the spiral they had gone down pulling them both in. She could feel how desperately he needed her, as badly as she needed him. They lay their clothes out for a barrier between their bodies and the dirt, and she sat astride him. His face nestled in her chest, one arm around her waist, the other hand nested in her hair - his fingers tightening, tugging ever so gently at the roots. The sensation of if was delectable. She held him to her, ran her hand through his hair, cradling the nape of his neck, squeezing. His skin against hers was electrifying. One more kiss, and while their tongues delicately explored each other, she began rocking her hips - slowly taking the full length of him into her. He groaned into her mouth and she smothered it with another kiss, and another, undulating her hips in tandem with his. 

His hands gripped her hips desperately, and her nails dragged down his back frantically. He clearly enjoyed it, for each time she dug into him he drove into her harder. All situational awareness fell away. The world around them fuzzed out. There was only Marigold and Danse. Her Danse.  _ Her Danse.  _ His body, slick with sweat against hers. His hands urging her on while begging her to stop. She muffled her little cries into his neck, gently biting him and leaving soft pink crescents behind. He liked that even more, his breath hitching in his throat, swelling inside her in response. Endorphins flooded through her, but she held back, not wanting it to end. As his breathing became more and more ragged, however, she felt the first involuntary spasms within her, and finally let go. He didn’t make it much farther, shuddering his release and clutching her to him so tightly she thought he’d break her.

They stayed where they were for a time, her arms wrapped around him, his hands stroking her back lovingly. At long last, she sighed and leaned back, looking into his eyes. “Well that was… incredible,” she was still feeling a little breathless and heady. He looked back at her with the most somber expression she had ever seen, and reached up - framing her face in his hands. “I love you, Marigold,” he said firmly. “For as long as I live.” Tears rose in her eyes and she met his hands with her own, turned her face to kiss the palm of one, then met his eyes again. “You’ll live a long time, my sweet soldier,” she said softly. His expression lost none of it’s seriousness. 

“Then I have a very long time to love you.”


End file.
